In Europe, the revolutionary transformation of the ruling systems
and state structures began with a bang: In 1789 the French
Revolution broke out in Paris, and its motto "Liberte, Egalite,
Fraternite"—Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood—took on an irrepressible
force. A fundamental reorganization of society followed the French
Revolution. The ideas behind the revolution were manifest in
Napoleon's Code Civil, which he imposed on many European nations.
The 19th century also experienced a transformation of society from
another source: The Industrial Revolution established within society
a poorer working class that stood in opposition to the merchant and
trading middle class. The nascent United States was shaken by an
embittered civil war. The economic growth that set in following that
war was accompanied by the development of imperialist endeavors and
its rise to the status of a Great Power.

Liberty Leading the People,
allegory of the 1830 July revolution that deposed the French
monarchy,
with Marianne as the personification of liberty,
contemporary painting by Eugene Delacroix.

Portugal and Spain

1814-1914

Economically and politically, 1 the Iberian Peninsula fell behind
the rest of Western Europe and suffered a loss of both wealth and
prestige as a result of the South American colonies' independence.
Portugal was unable to industrialize during the whole of the 19th
century, and democratization was achieved only after the turn of the
century. In Spain, too, modernization progressed only haltingly after
the restoration of the Bourbons; the power of Catholicism, the army, and
the absolutist nobility was still too strong. Following the more settled
1870s and 1880s, political colonial conflicts resulted in
destabilization that once more put the brakes on liberal reform.

1 Map of the Iberian Peninsula

Portugal: The Liberal Struggle and State Bankruptcy

The struggle between conservative and liberal political forces in
Portugal hampered the country's modernization and made land reform
impossible. In 1911 Portugal became a republic.

The Portuguese 2King John VI returned to Portugal from his
Brazilian exile in 1821, a year after Portugal had been
transformed by a liberal revolution into a constitutional monarchy.

His
son, as Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, proclaimed the colony independent to
save it for the crown. In Portugal, the queen and her son Miguel
attempted a coup against John VI in 1824, which was thwarted with the
aid of the English. When John VI died in 1826, Pedro—still in
Brazil—took the Portuguese throne as King Pedro IV and strengthened the
rights of the king through a new constitution. He then granted a
constitutional charter and abdicated in favor of his daughter, Maria da
Gloria, but the Holy Alliance forced him to make his brother Miguel
regent in 1827. The regent then had himself proclaimed King Miguel I in
1828 and reintroduced absolutism.

Again the English came to Portugal's
aid, and Pedro was able to restore his daughter to the throne in 1834 as
Queen 3Maria II.

In the ensuing years, the liberal Septembrists and the
conservative Cartists struggled against each other; in 1836 a revolution
restored the 1832 Constitution and a people's rebellion in 1846-1847 was
suppressed.

The governments of kings Pedro V and 4Louis I were marked
by internal political turmoil in which foreign powers sometimes
intervened.

By 1892 the country was also bankrupt.

Under Louis's successor, the weak 5Charles I, Prime Minister Joao Franco
abolished the Cortes—the parliament—in 1907 and set up a dictatorship.
In the next year, Charles and his eldest son Louis Philip were both
assassinated.

Thereupon the 19-year-old 6Manuel II ascended the throne.

Despite coalition governments, amnesties and liberal legislation, the
inexperienced king of Portugal was driven into exile in Great Britain
following a republican coup d'etat. On August 31,1911, a new democratic
constitution was proclaimed. In 1916, Portugal entered World War I
against Germany. The Portuguese forces suffered heavy losses, but as a
victor Portugal obtained some minor colonial territories from the
dismantled German Empire in the final peace settlement.

Carlist wars and rebellions obstructed Spain's progress in the
19th century. The flourishing period that began just after 1876 was
already over by the turn of the century.

9King Ferdinand VII of Spain, even more than most other European
monarchs after the end of the Napoleonic wars, pursued a
restoration policy of extreme reaction.

After he returned from France in
1814, he restored the Inquisition and then repealed the 1812
constitution that had given the word "liberal" to the world. A popular
revolution in 1820 was crushed with French help, and Ferdinand's
absolute authority was restored.

In 1831 he designated his newborn
daughter 12Isabella II as the new queen rather than his brother Don Carlos.

This triggered the turmoil of the Carlist wars that lasted more than 40
years, at the end of which Isabella's son 13Alfonso XII took the throne
after the very brief First Republic.

Alfonso XII did away with absolutism in the constitution of 1876, which
prohibited both the king and the army from interfering in politics. The
next two decades were marked by stability and growing prosperity.

8 Carlist revolts were suppressed, as was
11 the Cuban revolt of 1878,
although it flared up again in 1895.

The United States
then 10 intervened in Cuba, sparking the Spanish-American War of 1898, in
the course of which Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and
Guam to the United States.

The Spanish defeat produced domestic instability. Anarchist and
socialist factions gained in strength, and regionalist movements sought
autonomy. The conservative head of government from 1907, Antonio Maura,
demonstrated little understanding for the liberals, and in 1909 he
attempted to use workers from Barcelona in the conflict over Spain's
control of Morocco. A revolt resulted, and Maura was replaced by the
more liberal Jose Canalejas ó Mendez; however, his promising reforms
were cut short when he was murdered in 1912. Spain remained neutral
during World War I, which allowed it to profit from record exports.

8 Zumala-Carregui, commander of
the forces of the royal pretender
Don
Carlos, conquers Bilbao in
June 1835, during the Carlist Wars

11 Cubans burn down the sugar refinery at
Los Ingenios, near Trinidad de
Cuba,
during the 1878 revolt

10 Spanish cartoon questioning the
motives behind US support for the
1895 anti-Spanish revolt on Cuba:
"I've had my eye on that morsel for
a
long time, guess I'll have to take it in!"

The Carlist Wars

The Carlist wars stemmed from the disputed succession of Ferdinand VII,
who had designated his daughter Isabella II as heir to the throne. The Carlists, who wished to bring Ferdinand's brother Charles to the throne,
waged war against the followers of Isabella's mother, Maria Cristina.
The Carlists, whose strength was in rural northern Spain, fought against
the more urbanized south.

In 1839, the Carlists were defeated, but
Isabella's coronation in 1843 triggered a second Carlist war. Isabella
remained in power until the "glorious" revolution of 1868. In 1870
Amadeo, the son of the Italian king, came to the throne, but was forced
to step down in 1873.

After the First Republic, a military coup in 1874
placed Isabella's son, Alfonso XII, on the throne and brought an end to
the Carlist wars in 1876.

Revolt against Queen Isabella II, Madrid, 1868

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